Chapter 26 — This Counts as a Former Residence, I Suppose?

Gao Yang deliberately kept the procession from moving too quickly, for he could well guess that the reception staff needed a frantic scramble to get the manor at No. 4 Crown Street ready to receive its master, and he had no intention of making things too hard for those who were merely following orders. Yet even after he led the group on a leisurely half-circuit through the streets, by the time they reached No. 4 Crown Street he still saw servants in livery dashing in and out, sweating profusely.

Still, at least their preparations were more or less complete.

A tall, gaunt middle-aged man in a white wig and black cravat, every inch the butler, came out from the manor to greet them and bowed before Gao Yang's horse: "My lord, your residence is ready. I am James Brain, presently charged with the management of this estate, and I shall have the honor of serving as your butler during your stay in the royal capital."

"Brain... that surname rings a bell," Gao Yang said, searching his memory with a smile. "Ah, yes—Holly Brain, the little page boy at Charles's side back then. Charles was the one who gave the Brain family their name."

The middle-aged man who called himself James Brain wore a flicker of astonishment—the same astonishment, doubtless, that anyone felt upon dealings with one of the ancients (and an ancient who knew his own Xuanmai Sect, no less): "Y-yes... Holly Brain was my ancestor. Our family has served the royal house as attendants for generations, and the crown's direct holdings in the capital have all been managed on its behalf by members of the Brain family..."

Gao Yang chuckled. "Yes, of course—this house of mine is crown property now, isn't it?"

James Brain broke out in a cold sweat on the spot. The awkwardness of this topic was surely the greatest in the capital today—equivalent, say, to being strapped to a chair while someone reads aloud, to your face, the angsty teenage prose you posted online at fourteen...

But Gao Yang was only teasing the man, and swiftly moved past it: "Tell everyone not to go to such trouble. I won't be staying long."

James Brain drew himself up. "I have received my orders, and I shall serve you with all my heart. It is our duty to see the manor properly prepared."

"For instance, clearing out the ticket seller at the gate and the tour guides inside first?"

"...Eh?"

Dealing with otherworlders really was a pain—the jokes never landed.

Somewhat deflated, Gao Yang waved a hand, swung down from his horse, handed the reins to an attendant already waiting at his side, and then led his plus-one-generation great-granddaughter and the whole crowd of them through the gates of this ancient manor, seven hundred years old.

It was indeed as that palace official had said: the historic and profoundly significant mansions along Crown Street had not only been preserved but kept in their original form through ceaseless restoration. Seven hundred years—even with an unscientific thing like magic in the world, plenty of things should long since have rotted away. So Gao Yang was fairly certain that at least half of what stood here was no longer the original article, merely something superficially resembling it. But that hardly bothered him—he was not the real Gao Yang Cecil, after all.

Past a modest garden and forecourt, through a short corridor, and then the main hall. As the residence of a founding grand duke, No. 4 Crown Street was frankly a little shabby in scale; practically any family with the means to acquire property in the capital could have built a house twice this size within the city walls. So Amber began grumbling the moment she stepped inside: "This is it? Way less than I imagined..."

"It was built seven hundred years ago," Gao Yang said, glancing at the half-elf. "The Silver Bastion back then was only a size bigger than this."

"I think it's quite nice..." Rebecca said softly. "The castle I grew up in—apart from the huge foundation, everything about it seems worse than here..."

Amber shot her a sidelong look. "Naturally. Your family's nearly squandered the whole fortune, after all."

"No fireballs in here," Gao Yang said, casually clamping a hand on Rebecca's and Amber's heads. "And you behave yourself. Don't go pushing your luck just because you're first-rate at running for your life—one day you'll run into a real Shadow Master and drop dead on the spot."

After sending Knight Byron and the soldiers off with attendants to settle in and rest, and arranging for Betty to help in the kitchen with dinner preparations (the girl's frying pan would finally see some use), Gao Yang began pacing circles around the main hall.

"So it really has all been preserved..."

After two turns around the room, Gao Yang sighed in admiration. Memories kept welling up in his mind, matching and echoing everything he saw before him. Much of it was no longer the original article, yet the familiarity born of memory still drew a sigh from him.

Rebecca trailed after Gao Yang, circling as well, gazing at the furnishings in the main hall with curiosity and a trace of complicated feeling. The first generation of pioneers had all left descendants, and many of those descendants now lived right here on Crown Street—yet she, the descendant of the greatest of the pioneers, the current head of House Cecil, had not known until today what the house their ancestor once lived in even looked like.

Many things here she had only seen described in the family's books—an ancient battle-axe hanging on the wall of the main hall, for instance.

"This one I won off Charles in a swordsmanship match back in the day. It's nothing legendary, really—just a dwarven battle-axe," Gao Yang said, pointing at the axe on the wall as he sifted through his memories. "I don't know what those stumpy little fellows did to grow, but every one of them only came up to my waist, and yet each had the strength of a bull. An axe this size feels heavy even to a human soldier, but they could swing one in each hand like it was wind."

Rebecca, however, caught the name he mentioned: "Charles... you mean Charles, the founding king?"

"Charles Moen—the fellow they call Charles I today. Who else?" Gao Yang laughed. "When I say Charles, there's only ever been him."

Though he was merely wearing the shell of Gao Yang Cecil, this first-person bragging felt really, really good.

Still, Gao Yang's performance was not solely for the pleasure of first-person bragging—he genuinely needed to grow familiar with and inhabit his present identity across many occasions. For a good long while to come, this identity of Gao Yang Cecil would plainly prove immensely useful.

Amber, for her part, had no interest in family histories or royal secrets. After one lap around the hall—and after weighing just how badly Gao Yang would beat her if she tried to steal anything here—this half-elf lady, rich in professional spirit but fonder still of her own hide, plopped down onto a sofa, swinging her feet and looking about: "So, the reason you insisted on coming here—is it to pack everything up and cart it off? Your descendants have nearly squandered the family fortune, after all, and chances to come up with an excuse to haul things away, like today, don't come often..."

Gao Yang was dumbstruck. "Where did you get that idea?"

Amber looked smug. "Don't be shy—it's a perfectly normal line of thinking. If you're worried there's too much to smuggle out, you can leave it to me. I'll carry it all out for you, and no one will ever notice—with my skills, give me three trips' worth of time to go grocery shopping and I could about empty this place..."

A thief who so cheerfully discussed with the rightful owner how to steal his things—what a rare specimen. Miss Amber was now not merely the shame of the elves; she had become the shame of thieves as well...

Evolving from the shame of a race to the shame of a profession—that felt like quite the achievement unlocked.